


still it's so

by variative



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, First Time, M/M, Memory, Resurrection, Reunions, Turtles, gay childhood love and its poetics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-24 23:08:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20714072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/variative/pseuds/variative
Summary: Beverly screamed when she saw them. Then she covered her mouth with her hands and just stared, tears standing bright in her eyes. Bill stood up so fast his armchair jumped back, and beside him Mike did the same. Ben got up slower, a painfully hopeful look on his face.“Surprise!” Richie said. “We lived!”





	1. richie tozier takes a shower

**Author's Note:**

> this started as a self-indulgent follow-up to [the picture in reverse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20566844) and blossomed into something completely out of control. i'd recommend reading that first, if you haven't already

Beverly screamed when she saw them. Then she covered her mouth with her hands and just stared, tears standing bright in her eyes. Bill stood up so fast his armchair jumped back, and beside him Mike did the same. Ben got up slower, a painfully hopeful look on his face.

“Surprise!” Richie said. “We lived!”

Nobody moved.

“There’s no fucking way,” Bill said. “W-we saw them… no one could have gotten out of there.”

“Well,” Richie said, taking a few cautious steps forward; Beverly bolted to her feet and the guys all stepped back as one. “As a matter of fact, we were not crushed because the cavern generously chose not to collapse entirely, Eddie healed himself with the power of love and possibly a turtle—”

“What?” Eddie said.

“A _turtle_?” Mike asked.

“The power of love,” Beverly said dubiously.

“—and we survived,” Richie finished, talking over them. “Congratulations, anyone?”

For a moment nobody moved; then Richie was being smothered in a hundred and seventy pound of grade-A lean muscle.

“Oh my god,” he said, muffled, and clumsily patted Ben on the back. “Thanks, buddy.”

Over Ben’s shoulder he could see the others, all clearly braced for him to open up his face and take a bite out of Ben’s neck. He rolled his eyes pointedly, and then Ben was reaching out and reeling Eddie in too, and Eddie wrapped one arm around Ben and one around Richie and pressed his face into Ben’s shoulder and shuddered against them. Richie’s throat clenched tight and his eyes burned; he ducked his head.

Then a small hand rested on his shoulder, and he turned and put an arm around Beverly and pulled her in, burying his face in the soft cloud of her hair, damp and fragrant from a recent shower. Ben drew away slightly, wiping at his eyes, and then Bill and Mike were there, holding on too, all six of them standing in the foyer of the townhouse in a big old orgy of love and tears and snot.

Eventually Richie broke away, wiping his eyes and clearing his throat, no point trying to be surreptitious about it. “Okay, guys,” he said in a voice that was ragged and wet despite his very best efforts. “Who’s a man gotta blow to get some food around here?”

Beverly laughed and wiped her eyes. “We ordered Chinese, actually,” she said. “We just couldn’t really bring ourselves to eat it, after everything…”

“Ugh, yes,” Richie said, although now that she’d mentioned it the smell was unmistakeable; he craned his head and saw a cardboard box on the coffee table in the center of the lounge that looked promising. “If I ever see another fortune cookie I’ll probably pull out a gun and shoot it on instinct.”

“You’ve never touched a gun in your life, Rich, you liar,” Eddie said.

“I’ll have you know I’m a very steady hand on the trigger,” Richie said, and winked. Eddie sneered and turned back to Mike and Bill and Ben.

“No, Richie,” Beverly said, interjecting gently. “I meant, with everything that happened with you and Eddie…”

“Oh,” Richie said, and swallowed hard. Suddenly all the time he and Eddie had spent splashing around in the quarry seemed like time they’d been callously wasting while their friends wasted away from grief and trauma in the gothic old inn. He knew intellectually that thoughts like that gave him and Eddie too much credit, and his friends not enough, but guilt still squeezed into a hard knot in his chest.

“You must be starving, though,” Beverly said. “It’s all still there if you want—do you want me to heat it up for you?”

“No, honey,” Richie said, and pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “It’s just fine. It’s—it’s perfect,” he said, and meant it, even though it was just shitty cold Chinese takeout. “Eds,” he called, “Come eat, okay?”

“Don’t fucking rush me,” Eddie griped, but he unwound himself from their friends and came over to the lounge with Richie. They sat on one of the couches together; the old thing slouched underneath them and sank them down to the middle until they were pressed against each other shoulder to hip. The others came and sat down too, but Richie hardly registered them; he and Eddie were too busy falling on the takeout boxes like a pair of starving hyenas.

The only problem arose when Eddie tried to open his mouth for a bite of orange chicken and immediately dropped it with a yelp, his hand flying to his face which was suddenly streaked with a dark rivulet of blood. There was a general rush to find gauze and tape for him, and someone mentioned the hospital, but Eddie just taped the bleeding wound back together himself when Ben took too long about it and didn’t pack the gauze right, stuck a straw in the wonton soup, and steadily drained the broth.

“Should I chew your food for you,” Richie said, amused. “I’ll spit it into your mouth like you’re a little baby bird.”

Eddie flipped him off without looking up from the rapidly disappearing soup.

Beverly tentatively picked up a pair of chopsticks too, after a while. At first she looked like she was forcing every bite down, but soon she seemed to have regained her appetite; Mike and Ben and Bill all started eating too. Not that there was much left for them: even though Eddie was limited to liquids and the smallest bites he could manage, between him and Richie the food was fast vanishing. No one was speaking. The room was filled only with the sounds of six adults eating like pigs.

At last Richie leaned back with a groan. His head was pounding and he’d eaten so much he felt sick, so he leaned sideways and pressed his forehead into Eddie’s shoulder, taking refuge in the shadow of his body.

“No,” Eddie said, shrugging him off immediately. “You stink, Rich.”

“So do you,” Richie said. “I think you still have leper puke in your hair.”

“I do not! You’re lying.”

“Yes you do,” Richie said, and pushed himself to his feet, using Eddie’s shoulder for leverage. Black spots immediately flooded his vision; he swayed, and then Eddie stood up under his arm, supporting him just as he thought he would collapse on the floor. He leaned heavily against Eddie, admiring how neatly he fit under his arm. Also he was certain that if he tried to stand up straight on his own he would fall right over.

“Are you all right?”

Richie blinked hard and the black spots faded, resolving into the concerned faces of his friends; it was Beverly who had spoken.

“I’m alright,” he said faintly. “Just—just dizzy.”

“He’s got a concussion,” Eddie supplied helpfully.

“Oh, right,” Bill said. “I saw you get hit in the head by a rock right after you slapped me, didn’t I?”

Richie grimaced. “Sorry. How’s your face?”

Bill grinned widely. “It’s been worse. How’s your head?”

“Pretty as ever,” Richie said. “I want a shower and then to sleep for a thousand years I think.”

“Go on then,” Mike said, smiling at them both. He rested his hand on Bill’s shoulder, and they sat back down.“Holler if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Mike,” Richie said, waving. “Bev, Ben.”

Upstairs, Eddie let him go, but he followed Richie into his bathroom. At Richie’s look, he just shrugged and raised a challenging eyebrow. “The window is shattered in mine,” he said. “There’s glass all over the floor. And blood. And the last time I was in there I got stabbed in the face.”

Richie tried to nod, and swayed. He was so tired his eyelids kept trying to drag themselves closed, and his head was swimming so badly that he could barely tell which way was down. He felt really, really bad all of a sudden.

“Also, if I left you alone you’d probably kill yourself,” Eddie grumbled. He came over and helped Richie stumble out of his clothes; then Eddie undressed while Richie went over and managed to turn the shower on, although he had to lean sideways against the wall to do it. His heart was pounding, and every pulse of blood made his head throb, but he couldn’t help it; he couldn’t stop himself blushing either. All there was for him to do was try not to look at Eddie.

If he was being obvious, like he was afraid he was, Eddie didn’t let on. He just came over, tested the water with his hand, and then stepped in, totally naked and totally unconcerned; Richie almost swooned again. He grabbed Eddie’s offered hand and used it to balance as he clambered awkwardly into the high old-fashioned tub. The water was perfect, just shy of scalding, and the water pressure wasn’t bad for an old building. He couldn’t stifle a groan as he straightened up under the spray, a million little aches and bruises and strained muscles protesting all at once.

“Jesus,” he gasped, and turned to put his face in the water, flinching from the heat.

“I think you’re in worse shape than I am,” Eddie said, amused. His hands rested on Richie’s shoulders. It made him jump guiltily at first, but Eddie’s hands were warm and lathered with soap, and he started to knead at the knotted-up muscles of Richie’s upper back, and then all he could do was groan and let Eddie work at him. It might have even been true that Richie was the worse-off between them; Eddie’s body should have been covered in bruises at the very least, but he only had a few, wide-spread but faint. Richie, on the other hand, was mottled all over in vivid red and blue bruises, swollen and unbelievably tender to the touch, and as he really paused to take stock of things for the first time he realized that his knees and ankles were glowing hot loci of pain, and it hurt quite a lot to breathe. All that in addition to the blow to the head.

“Not all of us got magically healed back to life,” Richie managed. Then his words and the reality of the situation caught up to him, and he shuddered and leaned against the wall of the shower. Eddie’s hands tightened on his shoulders, steadying.

Eddie had been dead. It hadn’t just been a near miss or a close save, he’d really crossed that line—his body had gone cold in Richie’s arms, his blood had dried on Richie’s cheek. And somehow, impossibly, he’d pulled himself back. Richie hadn’t been strong enough to wish him back, he had no illusions about that. But Eddie had lifted a dead hand to comfort Richie down there, and when that hadn’t been enough he’d pulled himself up into life, and led them out of the dark. There was a world, an alternate universe, where he had died down there, probably one where both he and Richie never made it out of that cave. It was so close Richie could almost feel its cold breath on the back of his neck; he could sense its shadow like it was lurking on the other side of a dark veil, waiting to burst through the instant he let down his guard. Against what he wasn’t sure. He turned too quickly and staggered, but Eddie caught him, which was what Richie had wanted anyway.

“You fucking idiot,” Eddie said, holding him at arm’s length. “Don’t think about it.”

“Fucking hug me, bastard,” Richie croaked.

“Tell me you’re not going to think about it anymore,” Eddie said firmly. His hair was dripping rivulets of dirty water down the side of his face. Richie lifted an unsteady hand and wiped them away. Eddie shook his head like a horse shaking off a fly and snapped, “Tell me, Rich, I’m serious.”

“I’m not going to think about it,” Richie said. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Good,” Eddie said. “The sooner you stop thinking about it, the sooner I can.” Then he put his arms around Richie and held him hard to his chest.

“I didn’t think about it like that,” Richie mumbled into the skin of Eddie’s shoulder, which was salty and warm and unbelievably soft under his mouth. He kissed it once, and then really registered the fact that he could do that now, after wanting it for only about thirty years or so. So he did it again.

“Of course you didn’t,” Eddie said. “You don’t think at all.”His hand came up and cupped the back of Richie’s head, stroked his hair. Then he shuffled and sighed. “Stand up and let me wash your hair.”

“Jesus, alright,” Richie said, his whole body flushing hot.

“You don’t take care of yourself,” Eddie said, frowning and serious. He held Richie out at arm’s length again, looked him up and down with a gaze that started out clinical; then he blushed.

Richie laughed at him. “See something you like,” he asked, teasing. Compared to Ben or Beverly or Mike, he looked like a witchetty grub or naked mole rat. Compared to Bill or Eddie he was still pretty rough-looking.

“Maybe,” Eddie said, his face bright red and so serious that Richie’s breath stopped in his throat and he flushed hard with embarrassment and pleasure. Eddie dragged his eyes up to Richie’s, a weird guilty look on his face that cleared when Richie accidentally smiled at him—he’d been planning to smirk, or even leer, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. Eddie said, “Hold still, okay?”

Richie couldn’t decide whether it was incredibly hot or just embarrassing for Eddie to be doing that for him; he already knew it was humiliating, a little, because he probably couldn’t have done it by himself. If he’d been alone he probably would have stood motionless under the water for a long time, and crawled out not much cleaner than when he’d got in. After a few minutes of Eddie’s fingers pushing through his hair and tipping his head back to rinse, though, Richie forgot to worry about it. Eddie’s fingers were stronger than Richie expected and he was gentle with the goose egg on the side of Richie’s skull but not careful. Richie floated through it, grounded deliciously by the hot flashes of pain when Eddie accidentally pressed some bruise or another; after a while he lost himself completely in a haze brought on by the potent drugs of love and pleasure and head trauma.

He roused slightly when Eddie maneuvered them awkwardly past each other so Eddie could be in the spray and wash; then he sat down in the tub and drifted off again until suddenly Eddie was shaking his shoulder and saying in a shrill and slightly panicky tone, “Rich, wake up. Wake up—thank god, do I need to take you to the hospital?”

“No,” Richie mumbled, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs out of it. Pain lanced through his skull, and he groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. “I think I’m okay,” he said, hoping it was true. “I just need to sleep. And an ibuprofen. An ibuprofen and sleep.”

“Alright,” Eddie said, “Let’s get you up.” 

Richie must have drifted a little again; the next thing he was really aware of was Eddie pulling the covers of his bed up over him. He fumbled and caught Eddie’s wrist, mumbled, “Stay, Eds. Stay here.”

He was fading too quickly to really hear Eddie’s reply, but the last thing he felt was the mattress dipping under the weight of another body clambering into bed. Then he was under.


	2. richie tozier keeps a secret

Richie woke up with sun in his face. He was sweating uncomfortably, and he had a killer headache that felt as alive and foreign as a hangover.

“Eds,” he groaned, burying his face in the pillows. When there was no answer he lifted his head and looked around. He was alone in the room, but there was a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water on the nightstand. He reached for it and his whole body clenched tight in pain, nearly flattening him, but he fumbled for the aspirin with unsteady hands and drank greedily from the glass, water slopping onto his chest. Then he lay down again. The empty glass rolled out from under his fingers and dropped onto the carpet with a thud that sounded promising, so he didn’t worry about it; he just lay there until the cramps and the headache finally eased back. Then he moved again, gingerly sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, and got up and put some clothes on.

Mike was downstairs when Richie came down, lying on one of the couches with a mug of tea pressed to his forehead.

“Hey, Mikey,” Richie said, coming over; he sank into an armchair with a groan of relief. Their mess from the night before was still out on the coffee table. Richie was beginning to suspect that nobody worked here at all. “How are you feeling?”

“Bad,” Mike said emphatically. He pushed himself upright with a groan. “How about you?”

“Bad,” Richie agreed.

The front door banged open, making both of them jump, and Mike hissed as tea slopped over his hand. But it was just Eddie, shouldering the door open with his hands full of grocery bags.

“Oh, hey,” he said, coming over. The bags got dumped on a chair, and he swept the takeout cartons into the cardboard box, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “I’ve got breakfast,” he said, “Since apparently nobody works here. How are you feeling?”

The question wasn’t aimed at either of them, particularly. Richie looked over at Mike, shrugged, and answered for both of them. “Fine.”

“Liar,” Eddie said. “Where are the others?”

“Sleeping, I think,” Mike said, looking bemused. “How are you feeling, Eddie?”

“I’m fine,” Eddie said tersely, which meant that he was. “What, why do you ask?”

The takeout containers were all back in the cardboard box, and he’d turned away, trying to balance it against his hip and pick up the groceries at the same time. Richie met Mike’s eyes and shook his head slightly: he had a hazy but pressing memory of Eddie telling him to stop thinking about it, so that Eddie could stop thinking about it.

Mike frowned a little, but he said, “Just checking in. We all had a pretty rough day yesterday.”

“You can say that again,” Eddie said, barking out a sharp laugh. He managed to get the box and the groceries, and vanished through a swinging door that Richie hadn’t noticed before. He supposed it led to a kitchen.

“Has he…”

“He’s been like this since I got up,” Mike said in tones of deep exhaustion. “I think he’s fine.”

“Just worried,” Richie guessed, and Mike nodded, his eyes drifting closed. He leaned his head against his mug of tea again and sighed.

“You and he always ran on the same wavelength,” he said.

Richie froze.

But all Mike said in the end was, “I’m glad the two of you are alright.”

“Back atcha, Mikey,” Richie croaked.

Before Mike could respond there was a commotion of noise and movement at the top of the stairs. Richie turned to look and felt his face split into a grin. Bill and Ben and Beverly were tumbling down the steps, the three of them all chattering and shoving at each other and trying to go down the narrow staircase at once, as raucous as kids. Beverly hopped up onto the bannister and slid down, flying in her silk pajamas, hopped off at the end and jumped down the last three steps. She stumbled on the landing and tripped right into Richie’s chair. 

“Hi,” he said, grinning.

She beamed down at him, radiant. “Hi, Richie,” she said, leaning down to kiss his forehead.

The guys followed more sedately, but Bill was quick about going to Mike’s side, Richie noticed. And then he really noticed when Bill nudged Mike up so he could sit with him, one arm wrapped around Mike’s shoulders and their bodies pressed together so intimate and casual it made Richie’s chest hurt a little. He thought maybe he should chill a little the next time Mike asked anything about him and Eddie.

Ben and Beverly sat down on either side of him, each slinging an arm around his shoulders, Ben ruffling his hair gently. 

“Hey, Rich,” Ben said. His hand landed on Richie’s neck, big and warm and comforting. Richie cringed and eeled his way out from between them. No thank you to the lovebirds, he thought.

“Hey, Benny,” he said. “Glad you’re alive, gotta go check on Eds!”

He gasped in relief as soon as the kitchen door swung shut behind him, muffling the chatter of the other Losers.

“What’s the matter,” Eddie said, cocking an eyebrow at him from the stove. “Can’t handle the lovebirds?”

“Who, Ben and Bev? They disgust me. I’m literally revolted by them,” Richie said. “Also, I think everyone’s a little slap happy at the moment, and I’m already tired.” He went over, but hesitated at the last second.

“We’ve seen each other’s dicks, you can kiss me if you want to,” Eddie snapped.

“We did? I can’t remember,” Richie said, dry-mouthed. “Guess it wasn’t much to look at.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes at him, so Richie shut up, swallowed hard, and bent to kiss him. Eddie opened to him immediately and their mouths met wet-hot and electric; every part of Eddie was unlocking in Richie’s arms, his shoulders coming down and his hands circling Richie’s waist, his head tipped back sweetly for the kiss. When they parted Eddie just looked up at Richie for a moment, the near-permanent worried furrow in his brow smoothed away.

“I love you,” Eddie said, easily, as if he hadn’t just knocked all the air out of Richie’s chest.

Richie stroked the soft hair above Eddie’s ear with his thumb. It was too embarrassing to consider but he was a little afraid that he might cry. His heart was pounding and his throat wanted to close on the words, but it needed to be said. It was an irrevocable truth, after all—it was part of the very fabric of the universe, carved in. He took a deep breath and looked at the hair above Eddie’s ear and his thumb moving through it, and felt it sharply in his body like a physical ache as he said it: “I love you too.”

“I can’t believe we were so stupid,” Eddie said, his brow wrinkling up again in consternation. “All those years, I mean…”

“We weren’t stupid,” Richie said quietly. “At least, not most of the time. We were just kids.”

Eddie sighed and nodded. He cupped Richie’s face in his hands and pursed his lips, looking at him critically. “You were really scared, weren’t you?”

“I’ve never really said it,” Richie said. “I’ve never told anyone at all.”

“Do you want to say it now?”

For a moment Richie considered it, and then some door inside him slammed shut and he shook his head. “No. How fucking stupid would that be, anyway—what is this, group?” He mocked the pose he used in his stand-up routine. “‘My name is Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier, and’—I don’t think so,” he snapped, dropping his hand.

“It was just a question,” Eddie snapped right back. “Unclench already.”

“You’re kind of prickly today,” Richie said, narrowing his eyes. “That time of the month already?”

“Fuck you,” Eddie said lowly. His eyes glittered. “Growing up like this wasn’t just hard for you, you know.” 

“I’m sorry, Eds.” Richie cast around for something else to talk about and landed gracelessly— “So, what are you making?”

Eddie huffed and rolled his eyes, letting Richie change the subject. “I’m not making anything. What do I look like, somebody’s mother? I got bagels and fruit, asshole.”

The door swung open, banging against the wall. They both jumped and looked over, Richie was sure, with identical expressions of guilt on their faces. It was Beverly, dressed in a baggy shirt that might have been chic or might have belonged to Ben, tomboyish shorts, a pair of dark low-heeled boots. Her face seemed soft and bald and young-looking, and it took Richie a moment to realize that it was because she wasn’t wearing even a stray fleck of makeup. It reminded Richie with a sharp ache of how she’d looked that summer—maybe the first and maybe even the only summer of their childhoods—running around with a brass key around her neck and her hair tangled and wild, picking scabs on her knees with a cigarette clamped between her teeth, ash falling on her jeans. Beverly raised her eyebrows at them and said, “We’re going to Annie’s.”

The diner at the end of main street. “But I got food,” Eddie said, petulant.

Beverly shrugged unapologetically. “Mike wants hash browns, and Bill wants French toast.”

“Children,” Eddie hissed.

“I’ll eat your bagels, Eds,” Richie said, amused, and Eddie scowled at him for a moment and then seemed to soften involuntarily.

“Alright,” he said, as if to Beverly but looking at Richie.

“We’ll meet you guys later, then,” Beverly said, sounding too amused for her own good. The door swung shut, and they heard her bright voice, the lower register of the guys talking, and then the front door opening and closing.

“Those assholes,” Eddie said.

“She’s in a weirdly good mood this morning,” Richie said, frowning.

“She got the best and possibly the first good dick of her life last night,” Eddie said snidely. “Of course she is.” 

“You’re such a shit.”

Eddie’s face went solemn and thoughtful. Richie had a feeling that it wasn’t because he’d called him a shit. “Can’t you feel it too?” Eddie said. “The things that were haunting us all those years—”

“The echo,” Richie muttered, shivering. Or maybe not the echo but the sound it had made, or the changes it had made to them—Richie wasn’t sure, Mike’s metaphor hadn’t been perfect and Richie hadn’t understood it all that well to begin with.

“It’s gone,” Eddie said. “We’re just grown-ups who went through a lot of weird fucked-up shit, aren’t we? We’re not buried anymore.”

“Aren’t we?” Richie asked. He still felt plenty buried in some ways.

Eddie shrugged. “I’m right even if you’re too pussy to admit it.”

Richie thought about fighting that, but it was probably true, and anyway, he was hungry. “Be that as it may,” he said, shrugging back. “What did you get for me to eat?”

They sat on the counter and ate bagels and cream cheese and grapes and strawberries; Richie found packets of honey in an unlocked drawer and made himself an elaborate tower of sliced strawberries and cream cheese and honey drizzled artistically over it, and then Eddie demanded that Richie make one for him as well, so he did, and then Eddie caught Richie’s fingers and licked honey off them and all the blood in Richie’s body rushed straight to his dick and if he’d been a day younger and been through any less he would have popped a boner right there in the hotel kitchen. And then a sour-faced woman who Richie vaguely remembered handing him his key banged open the door and made them take the groceries and get out, scolding in a flat nasal drone that just about activated Richie’s fight or flight instinct all on its own. They ran up the stairs and into Richie’s room, locked the door, and burst out laughing like a couple of kids getting away with something.

“She was so angry,” Richie wheezed. “She was so angry we touched her precious fucking kitchen.”

“There was murder in her eyes, Rich, I swear to god,” Eddie snapped, pacing with a wild grin on his face. “We violated that woman’s kitchen and now she’s out for us.”

“Come here, you—you _villain_,” Richie said, laughing, and reeled Eddie in and kissed him. 

Eddie unlocked for him exactly the way he had before, his laughter dying but the smile still turning up the corners of his mouth, his hands threading through Richie’s hair. He kissed hungrily, pressing them together, and it was like his hunger got into Richie all at once; he pushed his hands under Eddie’s shirt, warm skin and a light sheen of sweat at Eddie’s lower back, something Richie had been waiting for since he was thirteen. He gasped against Eddie’s mouth, and Eddie kissed his lower lip and then bit it. Their hips ground together, and he felt Eddie’s hardness before he had time to feel ashamed about his own.

“Baby,” he groaned into Eddie’s mouth, and discovered that he liked how it made him feel to call Eddie that. He stroked Eddie’s hair with one hand and hooked it around the back of his neck. With the other he groped clumsily at Eddie’s chest, that shy stunted feeling that had froze him up by the Kissing Bridge looming in his mind, and Eddie gasped and shuddered and then broke away, wild-eyed.

“Wait,” he panted, “Wait, wait, Rich—”

“Are you okay?” A sick feeling rolled in Richie’s gut. “Eds, I’m sorry—”

But Eddie shook his head savagely. “No, it was fine, it was—you didn’t do anything wrong. _Nothing._ I just—I just—” He swallowed and licked his lips and said plaintively, “What if it’s bad?”

At least Richie didn’t feel guilty anymore; pure confusion wiped that out. “What are you talking about, Eds?”

“I mean, what if it’s not—not good, what if we mess it up,” Eddie said. His voice was taking on a panicky tone, Richie noticed with alarm. “Oh god. Oh god, what were we thinking, it wasn’t bad, before, was it? We had a good system, we had a—a—” His hand churned the air, searching for the right word. “A setup!”

“What are you talking about?” Richie asked. “It was awful, I was in love with you in secret for thirty years, dickhead.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t all bad,” Eddie said desperately. He was gulping for air, patting his pockets for his inhaler. “It was a risk-friendly scenario, we were in love and we were just friends, and friends don’t break up with each other—if you sleep with me you’ll break up with me!”

“If you sleep with me we’ll be in love and sleeping together,” Richie said impatiently. “I’m not gonna fucking break up with you.”

“How do you even know you’re attracted to me?” Eddie snapped. “You were thirteen! Christ, you didn’t know which way was up when you were thirteen!”

“I’ve seen you since then, asshole,” Richie said, but Eddie wasn’t listening at all, his mouth running ceaselessly; he’d reached some kind of activation threshold of crazy and wouldn’t wind down until someone came in and stopped him. Richie wasn’t surprised by it, but he did wish that it could have waited. On the other hand, it was pretty impressive that Eddie had made it this long without spiraling.

Time to be the brave one. “Eddie,” Richie said firmly, and stepped into his space and took Eddie’s face in his hands. “Do you want to?”

Eddie immediately stopped, looking up at Richie with big eyes and spots of color burning high in his cheeks. “Yes,” he said, breathless.

“Are you sure? We don’t have to,” Richie said, and meant it even though every part of him rejected the thought, hated it, wanted Eddie. He made all that shut up. If Eddie didn’t want to that was fine.

But Eddie clutched at Richie’s arms and hissed with near-frightening intensity, “Of course I want to, idiot!”

“Okay,” Richie said, repressing the urge to roll his eyes, and drew Eddie into his arms. “I’m gonna kiss you, then. That alright with you, Eds?”

“Obviously.”

“Then I was thinking we’d hop on the bed and get naked,” Richie said. The tops of his ears were burning. “Thoughts on that?”

Eddie squeezed his lips together and glowered. “We’d fucking better.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Richie said, and leaned in and for once in his life put his money where his mouth was. 

This wasn’t any fuckin’ thirteen-year-old’s kiss like their first one had been; in terms of hunger and heat and desperation it overtook the kisses of five minutes ago by a mile. Eddie’s tongue was quick and clever, and for all the sudden nervousness he’d manifested a minute ago he was bold now. His hands were tight and possessive on Richie’s waist, and then they were under his shirt and Richie was gasping into Eddie’s mouth. The tips of Eddie’s fingers rested in the hollow of Richie’s spine—it was unprecedented, it was everything! Thrills ran down his back and over his scalp.It was intimate in a way that Richie had never in his adult life permitted another man to be with him. It was intimate in a way he couldn’t image being with anyone else.

“Richie,” Eddie murmured. His eyes were bright and heavy lidded, looking up at Richie from under his lashes. He put one hand on the side of Richie’s neck and reached up to kiss him, and as they kissed he walked Richie back to the bed. His knees hit the mattress; he lay down, feeling very agreeable about mostly everything except that Eddie was wearing too many clothes when Richie wanted his hands and his mouth on every inch of bare skin Eddie had.

Obligingly, Eddie paused to pull his shirt over his head before he knelt up on the bed, crawling over Richie and bending to kiss him again. His elbows sank into the mattress on either side of Richie’s head and his hair brushed Richie’s forehead, their noses brushed; Eddie was bowed over him, surrounding him, blocking out the light. Richie broke away and put his mouth at the hollow of Eddie’s jaw, warmth and sweat and a slight medicinal smell on his tongue. He got Eddie’s skin between his teeth and bit, too hard, but Eddie groaned, his head falling onto Richie’s shoulder.

“You like that,” Richie breathed. His mouth felt hot; he touched the backs of his teeth with the tip of his tongue.

“No,” Eddie rasped. “It fucking hurt, you fucking bit me!” He licked his lips and his hips shifted restlessly. “Do it again.”

_I’ll do you one better,_ Richie thought, and rolled them over. Eddie thumped back onto the mattress with a slightly dazed expression, and Richie surged over him, the same position they’d come out of in role-reversal. The difference in their heights left room for some interesting variations, though: where Eddie had straddled Richie before, Richie was settled comfortably in the open vee of Eddie’s thighs, and he felt himself being _over _Eddie, not just on top of him—his shoulders broader than Eddie’s shoulders, his arms longer than Eddie’s arms. Richie leaned down and bit Eddie again on the other side, and then moved downwards and licked the hollow of his throat, kissed his clavicle. A little ways on, and he had Eddie’s nipple tight and pebbled against his tongue. A tease of teeth, and then not a tease, Eddie letting out a surprised-sounding whimper. Richie could feel Eddie’s erection pressing against his belly, hot and shocking through the layers of his jeans. He shifted again, moving downwards with the vague hungry thought of getting that in his mouth, and paused to press another kiss to Eddie’s chest, just between the points of his ribs.

Eddie’s hand clamped down on Richie’s shoulder, so hard that he cried out and his elbow buckled on that side. He fell into Eddie’s chest and felt the sharp points of his ribs moving rapidly under the skin, in time with the sounds of Eddie’s hard, panicky breathing. Richie looked up in confusion and hurt. Eddie was white-faced and staring hard at the ceiling.

“Don’t touch me there,” he said.

“Why not?” Richie asked in a voice that wavered despite his best effort. A shadow grew in his mind, a shadow that he recognized and was afraid to look into. Something was missing, right on the edge of his awareness. 

“Don’t,” Eddie said. His grip on Richie’s shoulder slackened and he slid his hand up into Richie’s hair, apologetic.

Richie groped for the missing thing and found something from or close to it, a memory: Eddie’s cold blood on his mouth, his cold hand between Richie’s shoulder blades. “Oh, god,” he said, half-remembering. He stared at Eddie’s chest where he’d been about to put his lips, just as smooth and pale and unexpected as it had been in the moonlit quarry the night before. He felt irrationally and entirely convinced that if he tried, he’d be able to reach in there, push his arm straight through Eddie to the bedspread underneath. “Jesus.”

“Keep going,” Eddie said.

“Is there a cost?” Richie asked numbly. He felt cold all over. He didn’t know why he said it.

“I don’t know,” Eddie said, a rattling gasp. He made a small pained sound and said, “No. There isn’t; keep going.”

“Are you…?”

“I’m fine,” Eddie said, snappish. He sounded normal again. Richie looked up at him and the gory conviction went away noiselessly. Eddie’s breathing had calmed down. Richie couldn’t remember why or when he’d been panting, gasping in fear. He put his hand on Eddie’s side and felt his ribs rising and settling, slow. Eddie glared. “Would you get on with it?”

“Aren’t you Little Miss Hot-And-Cold tonight,” Richie said, shaking his head; the shadow slipped away and he was no longer conscious of any missing thing. He didn’t notice that neither of them were hard anymore. But then, that was a situation that rectified itself fairly quickly.

“It’s the middle of the day,” Eddie said. He lifted one foot and kicked Richie in the butt, although it didn’t really deserve to be called a kick, more of a friendly pat than anything. Richie couldn’t tell if that was on purpose or not for lack of trying.

“All the same, have a little patience, Eds.” Richie grinned to himself, already fussing with the fly of Eddie’s neat dark jeans. But it was a button fly, and while Richie normally had nothing against button flies at all he found himself having a bit of trouble working on it from the other angle.

“No,” Eddie snapped, shoving him away. “Take off your clothes,” he said, already in the process of doing what Richie couldn’t. He had to get up anyway, because Eddie was trying to shove his jeans down without waiting to see if Richie would move first, and then he was already up, so it seemed like as good a juncture as any to strip. Eddie had forgotten his shoes and was yanking at the laces with his pants around his knees. Richie grinned to himself again and bent to deal with his own shoes; when he stood up again they were both naked.

Eddie was flushed, his eyes bright, hair spiked with sweat and sticking up in every direction. His legs splayed casually open on the bed, his cock lay red and stiff against his belly. He was the most beautiful thing Richie had ever seen.

“God, you’re beautiful,” Richie said, telling him frankly. Eddie opened his mouth, somehow and impossibly going pinker, and then he just smiled at Richie and lay back.

“So are you,” he said, looking up at the ceiling, still smiling. One hand traced lazy circles over his ribs, his chest. Richie got up on the bed again and got Eddie in his mouth the way he’d been wanting to, and they moaned at the same time, Eddie’s leg stretching out along Richie’s side all languid and easy with pleasure, salt and heat on Richie’s tongue. It wasn’t like he’d imagined after all; it was realer, it was better. He moved cautiously, testing the limits of his gag reflex, and wrapped his hand around the base when he was forced to give up the half-baked fantasy of smugly taking Eddie down to the root. Eddie didn’t seem to notice whatsoever that compromises had been made; he let out a ragged noise and arched into Richie’s mouth a little, and his hand settled on the back of Richie’s head, fingers working idly through his hair.

It didn’t seem like a very long time, though, before Eddie was tugging on his hair, saying, “No, Rich, wait, I want to—with you…”

“God, aren’t you sweet.” Richie’s voice came out a wet rasp, surprising him a little. He crawled up and pecked Eddie on the lips. 

“No I’m not,” Eddie said, twisting his face away irritably, and then lunging back up to bite Richie’s earlobe in revenge. Eddie’s mouth was hot and wet on the edge of Richie's jaw, there and then gone, but all the same, he nearly missed what Eddie said next: “I just wanna touch your dick while you can still get it up.”

“Ah, romance,” Richie crooned, and lined them up and wrapped his hand around them both. Glancing down he was pleased to note that he was, in fact, slightly bigger than Eddie.

“Quit fucking around,” Eddie said, gasping and irritable—he’d looked down and seen it too. Richie grinned and kissed the corner of his mouth, and Eddie immediately softened to him, his hand stroking up and down Richie’s arm, his thigh a warm weight against Richie’s hip. Eddie rasped, “Come on, baby, come on and do it already.”

Heat flooded Richie. “Okay, I’m going,” he said, and kissed Eddie and finally moved his hand. It was a little clumsy at first, but he got the hang of it. Yeah, he thought, he was doing alright.

“Next time,” Eddie said a few minutes later, so close he was gulping for air and his hips were riding against Richie’s with reckless abandon, chasing that edge— “Next time you gotta fuck me—Rich, oh God.”

“Fuck, Eds, I’m gonna,” Riche gasped, abruptly that much closer himself—he’d thought of it before, obviously, but never without the ugly sting of guilt and shame, and there was none now, just heat and desire and the thing he felt for the man in his arms that seemed too big and devastating to just call ‘love’—but he let go of himself and just wrapped his hand around Eddie, jerking him off and kissing him until Eddie cried out into his mouth and thrust against him, and wetness spattered Richie’s fingers.

They came to rest slowly. Richie was still so keyed up that he was trembling, his elbows and his hands filled with an intense vibrato sensation, his pulse pounding in his chest and in his dick. Eddie blinked up at him, lazy and smug-looking with the way the corners of his mouth curled up.

“Come on, Eds,” Richie whispered. He couldn’t seem to raise his voice any higher.

Eddie hummed and stretched under him, and then he did reach down and take Richie in his hand, and pleasantly and straightforwardly jacked Richie off. Richie shoved one hand down under Eddie’s back and hauled him close, rutting through the slick on Eddie’s belly. He felt a little bad, expecting that Eddie would hate being dirtied with bodily fluids of any kind, even his own, but he laughed instead and clutched Richie, working his hand faster.

“You don’t know what you fucking do to me,” Eddie whispered in Richie’s ear, just as he came in a slow and blinding wave of pleasure.

It took him a moment to get his breath back, and then another moment or two to want to roll off of Eddie. Unfortunately by that time Eddie was well and truly ready for Richie to roll off him, and had escalated from poking Richie in the ribs to trying to stick his tongue into Richie’s ear.

“Quit it,” Richie groused, smacking at his own ear. He heaved a put-upon sigh and heaved himself over onto his back.

Eddie got up immediately and went into the bathroom. Richie thought about pretending that he was offended, but it seemed like too much effort to fight it. As far as he was concerned he would be happy to lie there for as much of the near future as possible. He only felt a little bad for hoping that the other Losers wouldn’t be back for a while.

“Hey,” Eddie called from the bathroom, snappish over the sound of the shower starting up with the ominous rattle and groan of truly ancient pipes. “You gonna fuckin’ join me or just sit there and play with your own jizz?”

_God I’m in love with him,_ Richie thought, and hauled himself to his feet. He did want to fuckin’ join Eddie, as a matter of fact; wherever Eddie was

_(even if it lead into danger, into the dark, into death)_

, Richie wanted to be there.

The morbid thought made him frown, but only for a moment. Then he shook himself, brushing away the shadow, and went on.

#End

**Author's Note:**

> thanks all for reading and supporting everyone’s favorite middle aged gays


End file.
